Women Diets: Healthy Lunchbox Makeovers

Think what's in your brown bag would pass muster with a professional nutritionist? You might be surprised to learn how poor your diet really is

Changes/Suggestions: "The brown rice pasta is a good option, but she should try swapping it for quinoa pasta if it's available, since quinoa is a delicious whole grain that has all essential amino acids. Instead of cooking with olive oil I would suggest coconut oil, which is made up of medium chain fatty acids that maintain their structure and don't become rancid when heated. It also has a lot of beautifying properties and may help burn excess body fat. Low-sodium soy sauce is OK, but we must be aware that it still contains wheat, and therefore gluten, so an easy switch to consider is low-sodium tamari, which has a similar flavor profile but is wheat-free.

From the way Devran described her lunch, it sounds like she ate the orange last. Fruit digests very quickly in the stomach (in around 25 minutes), and if we eat it for dessert after heavier foods which take a few hours to digest, it gets backed up in our system like a traffic jam and can ferment, leading to bloating and other issues, so it essentially rots before we can assimilate all of its nutrients. I'd like her to switch to eating it first, or a few hours later as a snack."

I must say, I am glad not to be a guest at Kimberly's table. Most of these "victims" are making a concerted effort to be healthy while enjoying their lunches. Enjoying is the part that will be lacking in Kimberly's lunches. Nice to look good and live a long time, but not if it is without joy.

I really enjoy this article, but I find it discouraging that even the tofu eater was picked apart. First of all what is LEFT for us too eat these days??? Unless I go to the store and spend literally my entire food budget on organic fruits and veggies, then I'm out of options. Especially with a nut allergy things are increasingly harder to eat, and I mean coconut as well. Also some people are stuck working an all day job with no refrigerator so what are we suppose to do? It's getting so hard just to find something that wasn't made in a lab and it makes me sick but our FDA is setting us up to fail. They are allowing all these nasty fake things to be fed to us I feel like a Turkey being fattened up, which makes a lot of sense if you eat margarine btw because that stuff was invented to make our food fat... and now it's made us fat.

I would revamp each and every one of these meals to the hilt. The suggested substitutions might be better, but these meals need to be completely redone. Nice try for the short run. Not good for the long term.

How do you eat fresh brown rice out of a lunch box??? The suggestions are healthy but not practical for someone truly eating from a lunch box. I do pack an iced cooler daily, but I can't grill or steam anything from my car. Also some of these are much more time consuming. Can you offer practical solutions?

I agree with her on the diet sodas but most of these lunches seem a LOT healthier than many people eat and I do not know anyone who would want to stay on her diet for any length of time. I know I wouldn't..